The creature still hadn’t, after all this time, so much as told them its name. It was very odd. Good to have on one’s side, though.

“Ohhhh-kay.”

Mr. Tom nodded, picked up the dirty clothes strewn around the floor, and headed downstairs. In the kitchen he found the miss, eyes puffy and head drooping, clearly tired from the night before. She’d gone to bed earlier than usual, but the automatic link dampener had stayed in place until very late. When she’d clicked back onto his radar, it had woken him up.

Her refusal to just use one of the gargoyles for sexual stress relief was such a mystery. Clearly she needed it, if she spent all that time at it alone. Janes were very odd about those things.

“Do you need another cup of coffee, miss?” he asked after seeing to the laundry.

“Yes, please.”

The RSVP from the mage lay off to the side. He had accepted their offer to host him, rather than the other way around, and would be coming in a month. Plenty of time to get things ready, assuming that insufferable Paddy next door was researching the mage’s character.

“I woke the young master. He’ll be down shortly.” He filled her mug. “You know, he is taking to this magical idea very quickly. One wonders if he might belong in the house permanently…”

She took a deep breath. “That would be nice, but he’s in college. He needs to be out on his own. Maybe he’ll come back for summer, though.”

Misery lined her face. She only had a couple more days with her son, and the prospect of saying goodbye clearly caused her pain.

She needed a distraction.

“Here.” Mr. Tom dropped the furniture catalog in front of her before taking two eggs out of the fridge. Some things could be cooked beforehand and kept warm, but eggs really needed to be fresh. He set them on the island and monitored Master Jimmy moving around his bedroom.

“What’s this?”

“I was thinking. Of course you don’t feel comfortable looking over the ledger in that office. The furniture in there is very old and out of date. In fact, most of the furniture in this house needs updating. Maybe if you freshened everything up—made it yours instead of just a magical house you moved into—it would make the desire to properly run it less tedious.”

The corners of her mouth turned downward and her eyebrows pinched together. She pressed her palm against the shiny cover featuring a lovely bedroom setup before sliding it out of the way.

“Good thinking. As soon as Jimmy leaves, I’ll…” She paused, her expression that of someone who’d eaten something unsavory. “I’ll go through this and pick some things out.”

“There are many stores to choose from. Just say the word and I’ll sign up for catalogs for others.”

“I can just use the computer,” she said, looking down at her coffee.

“Also, it seems next week Austin Steele will need you to sign some paperwork regarding the winery.”

Her cheeks colored, something that was happening a lot lately in discussions of or with the steadfast alpha. “Sounds good.”

Mr. Tom studied her face while focusing on the link. Her emotions seemed muted, but he could plainly see something was bothering her.

He wondered if that awful woman next door had given the miss a hint on how to control the link. The miss ultimately had the power to do whatever she wanted—turn the “volume” down, mute it, block it entirely, or turn it up full blast until an errant thought about poking someone in the eye would translate into a jolt of pain. There would be no eye damage, of course, unlike with a real finger, but it would still smart.

Master Jimmy walked in a moment later, the shadows lingering on the miss’s face scattering until pure joy took over. Mr. Tom’s heart warmed to see it. A mother with her child was such a beautiful thing to witness.

“Here we go.” He grabbed up the eggs. “How would we like our eggs cooked today, young master?”

A couple of hours later, Austin Steele stalked onto the property, his movements purposeful and his steps eating the distance to the door. Mr. Tom couldn’t see him physically, but he knew how the alpha walked into a scene.

“Master Jimmy, come out of there now,” Mr. Tom called to the boy, who’d been wandering the secret hallways for over an hour now. Ivy House had opened the doors to him, and he’d charged in with the delight of a little boy. “It’s time to go. Finally.”

Master Jimmy hurried out, a lopsided grin on his face. “That is wicked! This house is incredibly cool. How does it know where I am? It literally just led me to you with the lights.”

“It’s magical. Come now. Is that what you’re going to wear?”

The boy looked down at his jeans and T-shirt. “Yes. Should I put something else on?”

Mr. Tom held out the boy’s jacket. ”You’ll want this.”

“It’s a really nice day, though.”

“On the ground, yes. Up in the air where you’ll be, no. Come along.” Mr. Tom led the boy out of his room and down the hall.

“What’s with my mom and that alpha guy? She said they’re just friends, but they definitely don’t have a just-friends vibe.”

“Austin Steele is a solitary sort of man. He might have feelings for her, but he will not allow himself to act on them. He is very hardhearted in that way. Trust me, he’s been pursued by every woman in this town, young and old, resident and tourist. He very rarely goes on more than a couple of dates with any one person.”

“Has he taken my mom on a date?”

“Not romantically, no. They have a strictly platonic friendship.” Mr. Tom led the way down to the ground level as the front door swung open, not mentioning that the miss would need to play the field for a while. From what he’d always heard, female gargoyles typically treated men like hats for a long period of time. They picked them out, tried them on, put them back, changed them with outfits, borrowed them—what have you. Eventually she would find that perfect hat, and that was when the mating dance would begin.

Female gargoyles usually chose male gargoyles, from what Mr. Tom had understood. She chose the strongest alpha her kind could muster, someone to protect her better than she could protect herself, which was a tall order because of her power and magic. A shifter was just another hat, no matter how powerful Austin Steele was.

Then again, the Ivy House heirs in the past had chosen mages. Powerful mages who could certainly protect them, but who weren’t trustworthy. Those mages had eventually led to the heir’s demise, so clearly the heirs would’ve been better off sticking with their own species. The proof was in the pudding.

Austin Steele stood in his sweats, his power surging around him, raw and potent, filling up the front entryway and then some.

Usually he was better about keeping it contained, but now it pressed on Mr. Tom, a dominating force. Something had gotten his dander up. Probably the challenge in town that had made him late.

The breath went out of Master Jimmy, and he slowed, his eyes wide as he beheld Austin Steele.

“Yes, okay, you’ve made your point,” Mr. Tom said as the miss left her room upstairs. “You’re not in your territory anymore, though, Mr. Steele. It is time to rein it in.”

That ruthless blue gaze shocked into Mr. Tom, like a predator zeroing in on his pray. Mr. Tom’s small hairs stood on end, and he had a sudden impulse to change shape and protect his territory. But the alpha’s focus shifted upward to where the miss was just reaching the landing.

She stopped dead, her hand on the railing, her gaze rooted to Austin Steele’s. The air heated up around them, catching Mr. Tom and Master Jimmy in the crossfire, magic swirling, pressure building. Within their gazes, within their connection, something urgent and needy pulsed and boiled. Her cheeks flamed. His body tensed. Arousal bled through the muted link.

Oh, good, maybe the miss would finally try on a hat and reduce some of that sexual tension while she looked for her mate. It would help her calm down a little, which would help everyone.

Thirteen

I opened my eyes to the familiar face of Mr. Tom, someone I didn’t really feel like seeing at the moment. My heart hurt. Today was Sunday, the last day before Jimmy had to leave for who knew how long. At least we’d spent some really great quality time together, more so than any other time since he’d approached teen-hood. We’d taken hikes and hung out around the town; we’d had picnics and wandered through the woods. He was not only getting used to the idea of magic, it clearly made me more interesting to a nineteen-year-old boy. Win-win.

The only part of my plan that hadn’t worked out was the trip to see the basajaun. It hadn’t mattered much—rather than hitch a ride to the mountain with one of the gargoyles, Jimmy had ridden Niamh’s nightmare alicorn like a pony. We’d wandered the mountain, touching trees and brushing leaves, hoping the basajaun would come out or that Austin might scent him. No such luck. At dusk we’d had no choice but to turn back. Jimmy and Niamh had apparently bonded, though, because that night he’d chosen to forgo video games in favor of sitting with her on her porch, throwing rocks at the mages who were flung away from Ivy House. (Yes, mages still trickled in, none of them with enough magic.)

“Not now, Mr. Tom,” I said, rolling my head the other way, looking at the buttery sunshine layering the cream windowsill.

“Yes, miss. I brought you some coffee.” He didn’t turn away.

“‘Not now’ means I’d like a little alone time before I get up.”

“Yes, miss. And why wouldn’t you, with that mage always staring, or Austin Steele throwing his weight around, making everyone nervous.”

“Sebastian is a godsend, and he only stares when he’s trying to figure something out, like why I keep messing up spells so he can teach me to do it better. Which he does. Austin isn’t making anyone nervous. He’s the same guy he’s always been. Just…hotter, somehow.”

“He might not be making you nervous, but everyone else is on eggshells when he’s around. He’s gotten much more intense.”